


Antumbra

by rukafais



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 16:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19177444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: There was time, distance, darkness - and, always, without fail, you.





	Antumbra

At first, they think they are dead.

It’s hard not to; in the bottom of the only world they’ve ever known, lost and alone, they stumble through the broken shells of their siblings. The shades hum endlessly, a buzzing chorus of voices felt more than heard, going all the way down to their core. Terrified, mourning, fearful, furious, the cries fill their skull with noise until it aches and overflows, like water into a bowl far too small for it. Their vision trembles and smears with the force of it.

(They wonder if this is how some of them died, the fate that met those blank, broken masks _clack-clack-clack_ rolling harsh and unrelenting beneath their feet. The clamour of the dead so loud, so painful, that they tore themselves apart to escape it, or were torn apart without being given a choice, _crack-crack-kssh_.)

Far above, unseen creatures scratch patiently. They clamber slowly across ledges, their movement _click-click-click-scratch-click-scratch-click_ becoming just another sound that echoes in the dark.

They stumble on, until ancient stone impedes their progress at last. A rough edge, a curving wall. From somewhere far above they hear the sound of the wind as it whistles and breathes through old passageways, high and breathless ( _sad and lonely_ ).

They don’t know where to go from here. They don’t know how long they stand there before they see something that sheds light in the dark; not the light of their creator who abandoned them, or the light that shrieks and screams and hates them, but something else.

Their vision is blurry and their head swims, but they can make out the distinctive shape of pointed horns, a grey cloak.  A silhouette that glows in darkness, but only around the edges.

(Sibling. They looked back, before they fell, before the door was shut. Did they come back?)

It beckons to them, or they think it does.

_This way._

They trip and fall in their haste, too many times to count. The horns scrape and scratch against their shell as they stumble desperately over a graveyard of masks, trying to reach something - someone - they’re not even sure is real.

Their vision blurs, and the light is gone. They find a crack in the wall big enough for them, where it was.

_(Maybe it was never there at all.)_

They cast a last look around, desperate, but there is nothing.

Faced with only one choice for survival, they climb.

* * *

The place they emerge into is just as dark, but far more cramped. They no longer hear the wind, the empty air, or the voices of their dead siblings; their head hurts, instead, with the thunder of far larger things trampling down tunnels, digging, digging, _digging_. Pushing aside rubble and soil like it’s nothing.

Chittering, squeaking, crying, clicking. Their head buzzes with new, strange sounds. They don’t know whether to run from them, or to face them with little more than whatever they can find, dug from the tunnels’ debris.

‘Whatever they can find’ is handfuls of rocks and dirt. Good for distractions, and not much else.

A flutter of a cloak, the glimpse of a white mask in the darkness, distracts them. They follow.

Through winding tunnels, step by step, frantically trying to keep up, they follow desperately. They slide and struggle, their footing unsteady, their pace slow.

The ground cracks, gives way under them, and they fall before they can leap to safety. Again, their vision blurs, their head rings with the impact of tumbling down.

The silhouette drifts into their view, hard to focus on with their unsteady vision. Unlike the one they were following, all quick glimpses of cloak and mask, never staying still for long, it waits for them.

They crawl towards it, hand outstretched. Their head hurts.

They feel tiny fingers, the same size as theirs, grip their hand and pull them up (they clutch the tunnel’s walls and climb, half-blind, still reeling)

_This way._

They reach the top of the ledge and have to stop. They collapse onto solid ground.

It hurts, they say, or want to say, or think they say. Wait for me.

They raise their head, vision clear once more, and find nothing. They reach into the darkness anyway, looking for something, anything

_Take it._

and touch and wrap their fingers around something cold. Heavier than they’re used to.

They struggle with it, still weak, but unwilling to relinquish their prize. It’s more important than anything else they’ve found so far. Something precious.

If they prove themselves strong enough - if they pull it free - it’s theirs. The first thing they’ve ever had in their life that could be called theirs.

They yank and kick and claw, fingers tightening, until they tumble back with the cold, heavy thing in hand.

It’s cracked, and chilly, and battered. It’s still stained from whatever it was residing in before they pulled it free.

But it’s theirs now. It fits in their hand like it was meant for them

(they were never made for anything but combat)

and they think that maybe it’s a sign.

With their cloak bunched up in their free hand, they rub the weapon clean, scrubbing clumsily. It’s theirs. They need to take care of it.

Preoccupied with their new prize, they begin to climb upward again, forgetting what it was they were chasing.

(A dissatisfied hiss comes from somewhere in the darkness.)

* * *

They lose themselves. Again and again, in winding paths, in wastes and water. But the darkness in light, always casting a shadow, is there; they trip and fall, or hide to tend to their wounds (they are a natural with the blade they wield, but they make mistakes; they are clumsy and still shaken from their escape).

When everything is uncertain, when they do not understand where to go, it watches over them. Maybe it’s because they are hurt, or disoriented, that they see it. They think, often, that it’s a product of their own thoughts, their own mind.

But it’s right. It leads them the right way, towards safety or progress, a clearer path. It always does.

Sibling?

There is no answer.

* * *

The wind howls, scraping the edges of the kingdom clean. It feels like it’s scraping them clean, too; the darkness of the place they were born, the fear of what they’ve seen, their hurried flight from danger to danger, is beginning to fade.

They stare out into the wild; for the first time, they want something other than survival. They could stay in this little world, this kingdom, but it seems too small, too cramped. A cage that doesn’t want them, that wanted to kill them; they aren’t welcome here.

They’ve always been curious, so they look back

Are you watching me?

Are you there? Are you _real?_

and with their vision clear, the wind rising, the silhouette they’d come to look for is there in the shadow they cast behind.

It’s a slight, subtle difference; if it wasn’t for the shape of the horns, they would be identical. It’s easy to miss.

But they are sharper now than they were, and they don’t miss it.

They face forward. They step beyond the kingdom’s bounds, and don’t look back. The wind scours all trace of their passing; no stone or sand records their footsteps.

(For a brief moment, their shadow is tall, unrecognisable. The horns are strikingly different; their shoulders are heavy--)

* * *

_The Hollow Knight stands at the window, watching water pouring endlessly down the glass. For a moment, they look out into a world they will never see with their own eyes; a hazy, dusty wilderness and a tiny figure disappearing into the unknown._

_There’s a hint of yearning, a pull in their chest; they want to follow, to protect. Sibling._

_Someone calls for them._

_They turn away, obedient._

_The vision (the feeling) is buried deep._

 

**Author's Note:**

> This comes from an old, baseless headcanon that the Knight and THK shared some kind of weird ambiguous connection that tended to manifest itself as the Knight having ''hallucinations'' that pointed them the right way and it being a major reason for their survival.
> 
> Of course, when they left the kingdom, they forgot. But the connection still remains, and they found their way back to Hallownest through it when they were called.


End file.
